Alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann refuses to leave cell for court for second day

Alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann refuses to leave cell for court for second day

The judge said: “If the worst comes to the worst, I will have to go to Belmarsh and the prosecution and defence will come too”

Joseph McCann

Alleged serial rapist Joseph McCann could be visited by a senior judge in jail after he refused to appear in court for a second day.

Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot authorised the use of force to bring the 34-year-old before her by videolink from Belmarsh prison after he refused to leave the cells at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

But prosecutor Tetteh Turkson said on Thursday McCann was “not being cooperative” and Ms Arbuthnot said “there are negotiations going on” to ensure he appears by videolink later.

The senior district judge added: “If the worst comes to the worst, I will have to go to Belmarsh and the prosecution and defence will come too.”

McCann, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, has been charged with 12 offences, including five rapes.

He was arrested near Congleton, in Cheshire, in the early hours of Monday, just over two weeks after he is alleged to have abducted a woman in her 20s in Watford in the early hours of Sunday April 21 before raping her in a residential property. He is charged with kidnap and rape over the alleged attack.

McCann is further charged with two kidnappings, four counts of rape, one count of false imprisonment, two counts of causing a female to engage in sexual activity and one count of assaulting a female by penetration in London between April 24 and April 27.

The charges relate to two women, who are in their 20s, who were separately snatched off the street in Chingford and Edgware, in London, before being raped in a car. Nine more charges are expected to be added to the indictment.